User talk:The Four Deuces/Archives/2020/October

Mass killings under communist regime

I found this old thread opened by Paul Siebert interesting and persuasive, not only for doubting whether the topic actually exists but also for being impossible to adhere to NPOV for the discussion has been both "extremely extensive and ideologically biased". So I write you this to hear your thoughts, especially since I think you are good at identifying a topic and what is the actual consensus among sources, regarding Siebert's points, whether you think they are accurate and if they still stands or if things are changed. I actually could not find anything for "mass killings under communism" and only 25 results for "mass killings under communist regimes". I think quotation marks are especially important because without them you get misleading picture, showcasing a bunch of results, but that is because Communists have been victims of mass killings, especially by the Nazis. Cft. mass killings under communism (60.500 results) and mass killings under communist regimes (52.000 results) with mass killings under capitalism (67.300 results) and mass killings under colonialism (58.800 results), yet we have not one but two articles about 'Communist regimes' only (crimes against humanity and mass killings).

So I think Siebert is still right and that "no 'Mass killings under Communist regimes' as a specific type of mass killings existed in actuality". Indeed, some scholars highlighted the differences between 'Communist regimes' such as the Soviet Union and Afghanistan and Cambodia (for the latter, along with North Korea, I would not be surprised to find scholars that exclude both as they were ethno-nationalist more than 'Communist regimes'), so how can we easily lump all those together? I think it would be better to simply take well-sourced information of the article and at best move it to relevant articles, for example Stalinism, the countries' history articles, etc., although this counts also for Crimes against humanity under communist regimes, not only this one. Secondly, I think that what you wrote here is especially relevant not only to this article but most, if not all, 'Communist' and Soviet-related articles. This is not a matter of 'apologism', as I am sure some critics would label us, but, as you wrote, "All these writers are anti-Communists. Anti-Communism does not mean opposition to Communism, but opposition to an extreme degree. That doesn't mean that their books are unreliable but that they present one view of events".

You also wrote "the term holodomor has been adopted by anti-Communists because of its similarity to the word Holocaust and to promote the narrative that the Communists killed 10 million Ukrainians while the Nazis only killed 6 million Jews. Notice that none of the sources Timothy cites use the term holodomor in their titles", so perhaps it is The Black Book Communism that popularised this lumping of 'Communist regimes' under crimes against humanity and mass killings types and that it does not actually reflect the consensus or research among scholars and historians. So at the very least, if those articles are going to stay, as I assume they are going to be, even though I believe Siebert was right and it would be better to delete and move all information to relevant, related and mentioned articles themselves, we need to improve the sourcing and wording to avoid exactly what you described and make it clear that, even if "their books are unreliable", "they present one view of events". Speaking about this, what is the current consensus in Communist and Soviet studies? We still have some criticizing 'revisionist' historians such as Getty as "apologetics for Stalin" and "accused them of downplaying the terror", or calling another respected, mainstream British historian, whose name I cannot remember right now, in similar words, I think for defending the Soviet Union on something related to World War II? There are Sarah Davies and James Harris, who "note that with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the release of the archives, some of the heat has gone out of the debate", but is this true?

I also found this other thread by Beland which highlights the issue "[t]his article appears to have a strong anti-communist bias, and an academic bias in favor of historians who believe that communism is unusually prone to or inevitably leads to mass killing or autocracy", which is why we simply are not going to have an article that respect NPOV; and if Siebert's argument about NPOV is not enough, synthesis and original research may be. For example, the article still relies, or relies too much, on Rummell, Cortuois (no mention of criticism; and if there is much criticism, perhaps it should not be used?) and in general anti-Communists or for higher estimates. We report:

In 1994, R. J. Rummel's book Death by Government included about 110 million people, foreign and domestic, killed by communist democide from 1900 to 1987. [...] Due to additional information about Mao's culpability in the Great Chinese Famine from the work of Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, in late 2005 Rummel revised upward his total for communist democide between 1900 and 1999 to about 148 million, using their estimate of 38 million famine deaths.

Who were those 'Communist' governments before 1917 (The Black Book of Communist states that 'Communism' started in 1917) and why even starting from 1900? We also still have the capitalisation issue on which, by the way, I think you were spot on. The Black Book of Communist explicity capitalises Communism when talking about 'Communist regimes'. So I wrote to you because I am especially curious if Siebert's argument is convincing and if there actually is agreement among scholars that a topic regarding crimes against humanity and mass killings under 'Communist regimes' actually exists and is also agreed among them. Davide King (talk) 00:05, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for writing to you again, I hope I am not bothering you; please, let me know if I do. But I think 'Communist'-related articles really need to be revised and improved; and this comment of yours made me point out what you already stated elsewhere. I believe you are a very neutral user who is especially good at reliable sources, due weight and NPOV, so I think you would be a really good fit to improve those articles by establishing due weight and NPOV. As I wrote there, most 'Communist'-related article are mainly based on anti-communist sources such as The Black Book, Conquest, Pipes, Rummel, Service and the like; and they are presented as facts rather than one view or interpretation. At Stalinism, we write that "Stalinist policies have been blamed for causing famines such as the Holodomor", citing Service as fact, even though scholars disagree about it or have more nuanced views; or at Anti-communism, where it basically is anti-Communism, i.e. anti-Communist states, with the implications that many communists are anti-communists, but the main topic should be the right-wing movement and there should be some Overview section that better explain it than have only History by country.

This is made all the way worse by the fact that small-c communism is conflated with the Soviet Union/Marxism–Leninism/Communist states et al. and by the fact that the Soviet Union, Stalin, the Holodomor and hence 'Communism' are equated with Nazi Germany, Hitler and the Holocaust (basically, The Black Book' argument), so that if one gives a more nuanced view of the first, there are bothsidesism, false equivalence and the often misunderstood whataboutery fallacies in return, even though this is a prime example of false balance in that Nazism, Hitler and the Holocaust are more like climate change scholarly, for which there is overwhelming consensus, whereas Soviet and Communist studies are polarised, politicised, controversial and conflictual, with legitimate scholars who do not hold the anti-communist view, but I digress.

The bottom line is that you were right in the few comments you wrote about it that I have read and that your editing could really improve those articles while I could do some copy editing. I am very interested to know what the hell happened exactly; as you wrote elsewhere, "The issue is whether or not the economy was in the control of the Soviet working class and whether the Communist Party of the Soviet Union represented them in a democratic way." Due weight and NPOV would require to present all mainstream, relevant points, including the so-called "revisionist school", and let the reader decide and think for themselves, especially when considering both actually agree on many key facts, but simply give or have a different interpretration. However, this is not the case in most 'Communist'-related articles as they are mainly based on the "anti-communist" school and basically telling the reader they are the 'right' view rather than one of many. To return to the main topic of the thread, Mass killings under communist regimes is a prime example of this in that it is mainly "anti-communists" holding that position or even creating it while many other scholars do not deny that killings occurred but deny that 'Communist' mass killings is a special or separate category; in other words, they deny that an article can be created from it as a main topic. Davide King (talk) 00:57, 15 October 2020 (UTC)